Your opinion please. Who pays?

Rep of distributor having dinner with two principals of successful ny store in order to introduce store owners to potential good client. Who should pick up the check?

Distributor’s rep is knee jerk answer.

Actually, I would temper that by asking who invited whom?

Since everyone sounds they make lots of money, they should be humble and chip in together.

Maureen, as a fellow attorney, you should know the answer is “it depends.”

The store owners…if the potential good client doesn’t pan out, the next two are on the distributor.

Reps don’t make squat…I was going to go into the wine business as a retail rep until I found out what little they made, then I went back to school so I could afford to buy what I wanted to drink…

+1

Expense account

It seems to me that the dinner is primarily for the financial benefit of the store owners, so they should be the ones who pay, assuming they knew in advance that the purpose of the dinner was to introduce them to a prospective customer.

Store owners? Isn’t the rep doing them a good turn by introducing them to a potential good client?

If the rep has no connection other than, “hey, I think these would be great clients for you,” then the store owner. S/he stands to make the $$ from the intro, right?

Split in half.

Maureen–who’s the big client?

Store owners! But could depend on how big an account the store is to the rep. No guarantee the potential customer will buy the rep’s labels so the likely rep beneficiaries may not even be at the dinner. Then, again, we don’t know how much the rep wants to kiss butt here either.

I suspect in NY that it may violate the law for a store owner to accept a perk from a distributor. Seriously. Couldn’t that be construed as a kickback/rebate? There are strict rules on that, I believe.

Sounds like the client is better off than all them. He should pay

Too freakin’ complicated! Just add it to the American Taxpayer tab. Chump change.

If it isn’t clear to the parties as they walk into the restaurant they shouldn’t walk in.

It doesn’t matter as long as someone tries to re-negotiate corkage at the table.

Maureen just wants to know who to send the thank you note to post dinner.

Bingo!




Not!